Why Flickr didn't create Instagram

From the Boing Boing Shop

Popular Posts

Follow Us

Wondering why Flickr didn't try to kickstart the Instagram-style social networking photo revolution years ago? It might have were its efforts not 'squashed relentlessly' internally. Unfortunately, Flickr is owned by Yahoo. [MG Siegler]

The Empowerment Plan is a Detroit-based organization that creates manufacturing jobs making EMPWR coats that double as sleeping bags: Via designboom: the empowerment plan is a detroit-based, nonprofit organization focused on permanently elevating families from the generational cycle of homelessness. it hires single parents from local shelters and provide them with training and full-time employment […]

The World Wide Web Consortium’s plan to standardize web-wide digital rights management is based on the idea that if an entertainment company doesn’t like a new technology, it should have the right to prevent that technology from coming into being.

The Black Friday Mac Bundle 2.0 is one of the Boing Boing Store’s best-selling Mac bundles yet, and it’s about to come to an end. If you don’t get your copy now, here’s what you’ll be missing:This bundle comes packing 9 top-rated Mac apps in one package, at the hugely discounted price of just $23.99. […]

The Boing Boing Store’s Gift Guide is full of ideas for pretty much anyone in your life like hipster ice cub trays, Xbox controllers, Halo Boards, and even diamond necklaces. As always, all products in the Boing Boing Store come at great discounts, too. Shop by price bucket starting at under $20. Under $20:Bloxx Jumbo Ice Trays […]

Unlike traditional lighters, the SaberLight features an electronic plasma beam that’s both rechargeable and butane-free. This sleek lighter is even approved by TSA, so you’ll never be stuck buying lighters you’ll just have to throw away partially used. For some people, like me, this is a pretty big game-changer. The SaberLight’s beam is actually both hotter and cleaner […]

Instagram is an iPhone app that allows you to take a photo that looks like a Polaroid Insta-Matic and then upload it to their site for smooth sharing. Very slick one-trick-pony.

And I like it. But at the same time, I think any focus on Flickr needs to really question their development cycle in general. Their coding seems frozen in 1997 and while I like them a lot, they still have the rough edges of a â€œbetaâ€Â for such a large entity.

I hope Yahoo! develops them or at least sells them to someplace that can truly let them grow.

I love flickr and use it all the time but they’ve definitely got a lot of problems, and they did before Yahoo bought them, too. Yahoo did bring several problems of their own, and I’m sure their corporate culture is negatively affecting the work that goes on at flickr, but it’s not solely to blame.

In regards to Instagram… how far do they really expect it to go with “no plans” (according to their FAQ) for an android version? Everything that’s really taken off in mobile has an android version these days, and if they didn’t to start, they quickly made one as their resources allowed it. I’d be interested in Instagram if they showed any interest at all in android, but they’re dismissing it at this point.

The other one, picplz, has an android version. As far as I can tell the features of the two services are identical (these are really very simple apps, so I don’t see what the problem is). Here’s hoping that picplz “wins” (in as much as any one service can win) because they’re embracing android.

Yet Instagram is getting most of the press – is it just because they have a better name?

I’m sure there will be followups pointing out a couple of exceptions to this (Apple and Google come to mind), but for the vast majority, it holds true.

The larger a corporation gets, the more risk-averse it becomes. Any new projects have to get vetted by so many layers of the bureaucracy, each of which has veto power, that it becomes difficult to do anything. This is especially true if the new project will compete with or detract from an existing product line.